Micromechanical systems have broad application, these days, in air bags in motor vehicles or in computer hard disks. So-called acceleration sensors are implemented as micromechanical systems for the former. As a common and reliable representative of a micromechanical acceleration sensor one might name, for example, a capacitive differential sensor having an asymmetrical tilting oscillator. When an acceleration or a force appears, the oscillator is deflected in the manner of a tilting motion, which on one side of the suspension of the tilting oscillator leads to an approach towards a substrate, and on the other side of the suspension leads to a distancing of the tilting oscillator from the substrate. If the tilting oscillator and the substrate form a capacitor, the corresponding capacitance is increased on one side of the suspension, while the capacitance on the other side is simultaneously lowered. This may be utilized to provide increased reliability and readout certainty in situations where the tilting oscillator is used. Thus, European Patent No. EP 0 773 443 describes such a micromechanical acceleration sensor having an asymmetrical tilting oscillator.
Micromechanical systems are usually produced with the aid of lithography methods, patterning methods and etching methods from layer systems on a substrate. In a conventional sacrificial layer process, a buried sacrificial layer is etched selectively in order to expose a self-supporting pattern of a layer that is situated on the sacrificial layer. However, in the production of asymmetrical oscillators, vertical oscillators or other oscillator topologies using these established processes, difficulties may occur or the production of particular patterns may even be impossible using these methods.